More Like Her (2 page)

Chapter 2
The Lemon Verbena Temptress

A
s I wait for my apartment building’s security gate to open, I realize I’m happy to be home. I breathe deep as the gate creaks along the ground and I finally pull down the narrow driveway of my apartment building. While I may be happy to be home, I’m happier to be back at work after a long, hot summer of nothing to do but plan and wait. I grab my canvas bag bursting with orientation handouts, curriculum pamphlets and binders filled with organizational fantasies of what’s supposed to happen in the upcoming school year and slam the car door. I have to hurry; the new parent orientation is in less than an hour. There’s just enough time to take a quick shower and chow down on some shredded wheat and fresh peaches. I’ve survived on shredded wheat and peaches, Greek yogurt and chocolate bars ever since Ryan left three months ago. I would probably be gaining weight if I weren’t so damn regular.

I walk back down the driveway and up the outside staircase to the front door of my apartment. I fight with the front door lock for what seems like hours until it finally clicks over. I kick it open and step inside.

“I thought you’d be at dinner with Jill.”

My heart stops. I suck in my breath. There’s someone in my house. Someone who knows my schedule and friends . . .
wait
.

Ryan.

“What are you doing here?” I take a deep breath and walk into the kitchen, dropping my canvas bag; its contents dump out on the floor. I’m needed in the kitchen. Immediately. It’s imperative that I slit my own throat. Not to be dramatic or anything.

Ryan and I met at a friend’s monthly pub quiz in San Francisco. And by “met,” I mean we were on the same team. Then I proceeded to build an entire life around him because he knew where Erno Rubik was from (Hungary). You know . . .
met
. Month after month, pub quiz after pub quiz, I joked, answered the tough questions correctly, held trophies aloft, only to watch Ryan come and go with different women who, let’s just say,
didn’t
know where Erno Rubik was from. My only consolation was he never introduced them as his girlfriend. This was all the moral wiggle room I needed.

He’d mention a song he liked and I’d bring him a mix the very next month with that song as a jumping-off point. It was only coincidence, surely, that the rest of the songs had to do with unrequited love, love being right under your nose, taking a chance on true love, etc. . . . In my mind, this was foreplay. We were getting to know each other. So, when Ryan finally leaned across and kissed me late one night, I thought my prince had finally come. Someone had finally understood my subtle yet cunning signs. Someone had finally seen me as a woman and not as a friend. At long last, the fairy tale was mine.

For once, “happily ever after” actually applied to me. When Ryan moved down to Pasadena for the position at Markham, I followed. I found temporary jobs in various school districts until a position opened up at Markham. I was perfectly comfortable leaving everything for him. Eerily comfortable.

“I had to pick up a couple of things. That I—you know—left behind.” Sadly, I don’t think he’s referring to me.

Ryan is holding a banker’s box filled with various items. I’m mortified when I see that he’s found the old Pavement T-shirt of his that I’ve been sleeping in. A shirt that’s now being boxed up and taken to an apartment he now shares with Jessica. I will myself not to dive into that box and pull that shirt out like it was my firstborn. What else is in that box? My future? My self-worth? The two years I wasted waiting for Ryan to ask me to marry him? Nope. There’s just a stack of Russian novels (in the original Russian), a couple of CDs (making sure to leave behind every mix I’d ever made him) and that sad little T-shirt (of a band I never admitted to despising). Three months and this is what he came back for? A stack of items I want only because they remind me of him. He was here. We were a couple. See?

What will I point to now to show people I was once loved?

“I didn’t see you at orientation,” I lie. My shoulders creep up higher. Higher still. I don’t know how to be in my own apartment. Our apartment.
My
apartment. As I scan the barren living room, I regret not sprucing up the place since Ryan left. I wish I’d brought in color and light as proof of a Patti LaBelle–sized new attitude. Alas, the apartment looks just as half-lived-in as the day Ryan left.

“I was up near the front.”

“Oh.”

“The new head of school seems cool.”

“Headmistress Dunham? Yeah, I guess.” Salt, meet wound.

We stand in silence. A silence that redefines the parameters of awkward.

My toilet flushes.

Terror. A brief moment of confusion, then the stomach-dropping realization—someone else is here. I look from the phantom-flushing toilet to Ryan, who looks away. My entire body tightens—jaw clenches, arms tightly cross, fists ball up—and I ready myself. She’s washing her hands. Yes, please. Take your time being hygienic; my fancy lemon verbena hand soap was definitely purchased with you in mind, petal. The bathroom door creaks open.

Jessssssica.

“I was wondering who you were talking to out here,” Jessica says, smiling.

She’s not alarmed. She’s not embarrassed. She’s also not even that cute. I’ll focus on the latter rather than the other two.

“It’s just Frannie,” Ryan says, shrugging.

“Just Frannie? Is that what we’re calling her now?” Jessica says, tittering and folding into Ryan.

Wow. Where to begin.

“Jessica Trapper, this is Frannie Reid,” Ryan says, shifting the box around and gesturing from Jessica to me.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she says, extending her hand.

“Aren’t you the woman Ryan was cheating on me with?” I ask, not taking her extended hand.

“
Frannie
,” Ryan says.

“Or was that someone else?” I ask, my voice now light as a feather. I look from Jessica to Ryan.

“No, no . . . that was me,” Jessica says, her hand dropping to her side.

“So, I imagine you would have heard a lot about me,” I say, a smile cracking its way across my face.

“Not as much as you’d think,” Jessica says, almost under her breath.

“Frannie, please,” Ryan says.

“No, we’re fine now. It’s all good. Jessica, right? Hey, Frannie Reid. Just Frannie,” I say, smiling and extending my hand to her.

“Hi,” she says hesitantly, her hand reaching out to me once more.

“Go fuck yourself, Jessica,” I say, dropping my hand again.

“All right, I think we should probably head out then,” Ryan says, taking Jessica’s extended hand in his.

I hate that I’m blaming the other woman. Jessica certainly isn’t making things better with her “Just Frannie” bullshit and lemon-verbena-wafting newly washed hands, but it’s not her fault Ryan stopped loving me. It’s Ryan I should be telling off. But it’s far easier, and less excruciating, to blame Jessssica. I’m not ready to blame Ryan. Hell, I’m not even ready to believe that it’s over.

Two years. Ryan and I were together two years. We were the couple that the students were embarrassed to look at. Other staffers never mentioned one of us without the other. The older ladies in the front office, whom we affectionately refer to as the Coven of Front-Office Hags, ribbed him about his muss of black hair needing a cut before the wedding. They rolled their eyes and mumbled something about “kids today” each time Ryan confessed he hadn’t yet proposed. We went on double dates with Jill and her husband, Martin. We played dominoes and brought bottles of wine.

He was my plus-one.

Now I recognize I was the girl he bided his time with. The girl
before
the girl. His light blue eyes travel over me. Does he want to apologize? For moving out. For cheating. For breaking it off. For not loving me. He flips his black muss of hair out of his eyes and gives Jessica an almost imperceptible signal to evacuate the premises as quickly as possible.

“So, I’ll see you tonight then . . .
Ryan
?” I ask.

Ryan adjusts his hold on the box again, letting Jessica’s hand fall away. “Jessica, can you give us a minute?” he says. She steps out of the apartment without another word, leaving Ryan and me alone. His lips are tight. Compressed. I won’t inhale him as he passes. I won’t close my eyes and remember what it was like to fall asleep to his quiet snoring. I raise my eyebrows and look out the open door. I think I’m smiling. I hope I’m smiling.

He says nothing. I can’t help myself. Even as I take a breath for the next sentence I know I’m on the cusp of a moment I’m going to be cringingly replaying and regretting in my mind for years. Nonetheless . . .

“Why . . . why’d you bring her here? To our apartment?”

Ryan turns around. “This is
your
apartment now and Jessica is
my
girlfriend, so—”

“Ryan, it’s me. It’s Frannie. Why are you talking to me like I’m some dude in Starbucks asking you to watch his shit? Come on. Think this through—maybe bringing the new girl here wasn’t such a good idea,” I say, hating that my hand is reaching out for him.

“This is how it always was with you. You overthink shit, Frannie. I didn’t think you’d be here. Jessica and I are together so she came with me to pick up the last of my stuff. Not everything is as complicated as you make it out to be.” My hand falls to my side. Ryan’s voice isn’t raised. It’s worse. It’s indifferent.

“No, you’re right, it clearly takes two people to carry that tiny box that weighs nine ounces,” I say, motioning to the offending, flimsy container that somehow is substantial enough to carry any hope I had that Ryan would return to me—and the life we made together—out the door with him.

Ryan clears his throat and switches the box to the other side.

“Probably not a good idea to bring the girl you cheated with into your ex-girlfriend’s home though, right?” The
ex
chokes in my throat.

“So intense. Always. So. Intense.” Ryan digs into his pocket and pulls out our apartment key. It’s already off his key ring. He was prepared. As he presses the key into my hand, I can’t stop replaying that line from
When Harry Met Sally:
You’re saying Mr. Zero knew you were getting a divorce a week before you did
. I deflate. The key knew. The key knew it was over. We were over. I curl my fingers around it as Ryan shakes his head, mumbling something about me making things soooo difficult. He enunciates the word
difficult
with particular disdain as he turns for the door. I feel like screaming. But as he closes the door behind him what I feel most is . . . alone. Left behind. And now I just feel like crying.

I sit on the arm of the sofa. I wish I could say I collapse. I don’t. I just sit. The blur of the last three months. Jill pairing me up with any man who’ll take my mind off Ryan has cemented my worst fears: not only did I have someone great, but I might have been lucky to have him at all.

I remember sitting in a movie theater once. And Ryan was talking about something. Really animated. Using his hands. Passing me caramel corn in the midst of his impassioned speech. Shoving kernels in his mouth as he spoke. And I thought, holy shit. You’re the one. This is it. You’re perfect for me and this is it. I’ve found you and here you are in the flesh: my happily ever after.

I was wrong.

PLEASE DON’T TELL ME
that you actually said, ‘It’s all good.’ Jill says. The door between our joint offices is open and we’re bustling around getting ready for the parental onslaught. My dark hair is still a little damp from the shower. I took far too long sulking and eating stale shredded wheat to properly dry it. Jill has on one of her usual ensembles: a Kelly green tailored sheath. Her mane of red hair, the very embodiment of her, is caught at the nape of her neck, loosely tied with a coordinating grosgrain ribbon.

“Yep, right before I told her to go fuck herself. It was quite a lively conversation,” I say.

“What did she look like?”

“She’s
that
girl. Not too cute, not too ugly. Not too fat, not too thin. She looks like everyone and no one at the same time.”

“I’m going to need something a bit more specific if I’m going to feel better about this entire situation.”

“She’s utterly forgettable.”

“And yet . . .”

“Yes. Exactly. And in time I will embrace the point you’re trying to make.”

“And what point is that?”

I answer in the same robotic voice that inhabits every jilted lover, “That Ryan doesn’t want a shiny penny. He wants a woman who is utterly forgettable and beige, ensuring that
he
can be ‘the beloved’ in the relationship. I listen to the same Alanis Morissette songs that you do, dearest.” Or maybe he doesn’t want someone who makes everything sooo difficult, who overthinks everything. You know, someone who is too intense. I’m just spitballing here.

“So, we’re on the same page.”

“Alas, yelling along to
Jagged Little Pill
in its entirety is not quite the same thing as really digesting its message, now, is it?”

“It’s a start.” Jill runs her hand down the sleeve of my vintage sweater. She presses out a concerned smile and squeezes my hand.

“He didn’t deserve you, sweetie.” Jill’s voice is achingly soft and affectionate.

I nod and take a deep breath. Jill gives me a reassuring grin and a quick pat on the ass and flits back over to her desk.

It’s jarring how quickly this sensation returns. The fantasy of liv-ing happily ever after was always tempered by my constant second-guessing that I would ever be, in any way, involved. Sure, happy couples exist. People walk down aisles and babies are born. Now, where do I come in again?

“Why did he even still have his key?” Jill asks as she arranges a tray of cookies, fanning them out decoratively.

“I refuse to answer that on the grounds that it makes me look desperate.”

We are quiet.

Jill finally speaks. “You know my theory.” I look up from the stack of colorful mission statements and curricula vitae we’ve prepared.

She quickly adds, “Don’t kill me, but you know my theory.”